I went to the homeschool used curriculum fair yesterday and it was so much fun.  I spent a bit too much money but I also got so much.  I finally found the math maipulatives that I have been dreaming about for a while now.  And a book on how to use them.  I picked up a few basic homeschool sourcebooks and some Miquon Math workbooks. I was there for about an hour and a half and the place was so crowded that at times it was difficult to move around. I am so greatful my husband understood and drove the hour it took to get there.

I brought home one box of free and one box of paid stuff. 

Plus I hooked up with some local homeschool groups.  Yay.

This weekend Monkeyman had a really good friend come stay.  They two boys are both tan from running around the yard all weekend.  His friend is unfortunately moving to New Zealand at the end of the summer.  They get along so well.  They are only a month apart in age and they had so much fun playing in the sprinkler and playing with Nerf guns with the neighbor next door. 

I am opposed to guns as a general rule.  However I've made an exception for the nerf gun in hopes that he will get the warmongering out of his system early. And I have decided that nurturing the boy in him feels like the right thing to do.  I read an article in Mothering magazine that said that the problem with kids and guns is not violence- it is a parent's reaction to violence.  The article interviewed a bunch of parents with varying views on it.  I liked the interviews with the dad's who said essentially "I am not a fighter, my parents let me play with toy guns but I grew up to be a peaceful person and my son will too."

Last night we went to the fireworks.  They had been postponed due to the rain but it was nice because it was less stressful going out late on Saturday and Monkeyman's friend got to come along.

He is napping now.  I should probably wake him up as it is late afternoon.  But he played so hard this weekend and I am tempted to let the exhaustion run its course.

Plus he looks so happy lying there all sunkissed and sleepy. 

We have been at lesson 70 for a few weeks now.  We get partway through and he gets bored or rebels.  I was reading some posts on another forum where someone said that is where her child had hit a wall with the program too.  I think the problem here is that those stories are cute but kind of predictable, repetitive, Boring.  I love the system and it works really well. So well, in fact, that I have caught Monkeyman reading for months now.  There will be a sign in a store and he will just do what it says, or read it aloud.  Or I will leave a note on the table and he follows my directions without talking to me about it.  It is so funny. 

Yesterday after a frustrating morning we went outside in the afternoon.  We played at the water park and hit the library.  I got him signed up for the summer reading program and picked up a copy of the Usbourne's Children's Bible.  It was so neat!  At the top of the pages there were simple sentences for your child to read and at the bottom there was more complicated text for Mom and Dad to read.  Monkeyman decoded the sentences- all of them. He needed very little help!  It was so very cool!

Monday started really well.  We got a lot done in the morning.  Tuesday went alright too.  Wednesday threw our schedule off and today we have had a frustrating morning this morning.  Monekyman doesn't want to do anything.  So we have played two board games, Ravensburger Roads and Rails and our money bingo game.  He won't pick up his toys and I am having one of those end of the rope mornings.  But, on the flip side I got the kitchen floor washed first thing this morning, did the dishes, and one load of laundry.  I think we need to get out of the house.  Swim lesson starts in half an hour but it is freezing out. 

What is your favorite thing to do you do when you have one of those days when every five seconds you want to bang your head against a wall?

Today is my first day of "freedom".  For a while now I have had a job outside the home.  Trying to balance work, mothering, homeschooling, housekeeping, and my own interests has been tough.  I am looking forward to the opportunity to be home and have time to deal with all the really important things.

This week our plan is to really dig in to our unit on Plants.  I am using What your Kindergartner Needs to Know as a basic curriculum guide here.  I am sure we will go more in depth on some thngs the book covers only briefly.  But for now we will start with their plant unit.  Today we are going to go outside to the garden and pull some weeds and look at them- trying to figure out what each part of the plant is.  Then we are going to glue together a model of a plant (cutting the stems and leaves out of construction paper). 

Meanwhile I have put together a basic morning routine and I hope I can continue getting up a few hours ahead of my dear son.  It helps.  This morning already I have swept the kitchen floor, thrown in a load of laundry, folded and put away another load, watered the garden, cleaned Moneky-man's room and made his bed (he climbed in with us early this morning- leaving his room free for me to straighten), and am about to do some academic reading of my own.  My big project right now is working on Monkey-man's halloween costume.  I know it is early for Halloween but he wants to be a knight.  And being a big kid myself I love Halloween so I am going to try my hand at making authentic chain mail.

Last night I got online and hooked into the local homeschool groups. I can't wait to really get moving on this.

My monkeyman is only four and so our math curriculum is pretty simple.  Math manipulatives are expensive and I have some tanagram sets, cuisinaire rods, and also a box of crayons.  A box of crayons... you say?  They are excellent for teaching amath.  Friend who used to be a teacher gave them to us.  They are many many mixed up sets.  I use them for math this way- we start with a basic worksheet- either one from a book purchased at the store or one I make on my own since our workbook is mysteriously missing.  We are doing addition and subtraction and practicing writing and identifyoing numbers.  I have one piece of paper with a fold in the middle.  Monkey man must read the problem aloud and then build it using several crayons of the same color.  So for the problem 3 plus 5 he puts 3 crayons above the fold, puts the plus sign in the middle, and five crayons below the fold.  Then he counts the total number and identifies the correct answer from a pile of number cards.  He can pick up the number card and look at it while he writes the correct answer on the problem sheet.  It may sound like a complicated way to get the work done but I am hoping that the one to one correspondence and the kinesthetic aspects help him to internalize the process.

Organization has always been a weak point with me and I think, in worder to be a succesful homeschooler, one must conquer those tendencies.  I endeavor to spend the weekend conquering the little tornados lying everywhere.

I have been reading a Thomas Jefferson Education and considering the fact that I no longer challenge my brain.  I don't stretch my reasoning to wrap itself firmly against philosophical treatises and I haven't since college.

This week I quit my job- giving myself the time and permission to relax and deal in a systematic manner with all the things that I routinely neglect when my job at home is not my primary focus in life.  I let the dishes go, the counters get cluttered. I put off the mental sorting that must be done to keep me functioning at an optimal level.  And, I forget to pay attention to Monkeyman.  When I finally have the time to settle my efforts on spending time with Monkeyman I am alway trying to catch up on something else at the same time.  It is quite frustrating. like rushing and artist or artistic experience- being in a museum and swept past the Monets by an overly engaging crowd.

With that restructuring a refocus on homeschooling should surge forth from the household.

So Monkeyman is obsessed with the show Diego and his friend has a field journal- like a magna doodle that requires batteries.  Monkeyman was begging for one and instead of giving him one I said that he could make his own.  I found an old notebook and we covered the front with construction paper and put a picture of Alicia on it.  We wrote "Field Journal" on the front page and now when we observe animals or scientific phenomenon we can write it up in the field journal and Monkeyman draws a picture on the next page.  I want to do this with history/social studies too.
H

So we are homeschooling for preschool.  Now that the bathroom is done and the playroom is set up we have been making daily progress on Math and reading.  We are using the Distel program teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons and also using starfall for fun and beestar for math.For Chanukah Monkeyman got Cranium Cariboo and he loves it.  It may be a little beneath him but it reinforces concepts, he loves it, and I am considering making other card for it to reinforce new concepts.
H

Sometimes I forget Monkeyman is only three and some days he just "has enough." We both took a nap this afternoon and felt much better, he helped me cook dinner and we did puzzles.  Tomorrow we'll work on math and wash the bathmat.  :)
H

I've been proud of myself the last couple of days, I put together a schedule that mixes cleaning, my work, and homeschooling together quite nicely.  The idea is Monkeyman and I cooperate on getting some chores done and then there are chuncks of time that are labled FUN and he gets to pick what we do.  This has been working laright for the last few days and then today he was begging to get to watch tv.  So I turned on reading rainbow and let him watch a half hour in his next "fun" slot.  This is a switch as there has been no tv watching during the weekday for weeks.  When I turned it off he was okay, then gradually became more non-compliant- throwing the dustpan full of dust on the floor, etc.  Finally he refused to wash his hands, and threw a screaming biting fit.  What do I do here?  How do other moms mix discipline with chores and homeschooling, I feel like I should stick to the schedule but if he is being a monster then I can't. Argh, I was so proud just a little while ago, now I feel kind of defeated.  He is in his room, not napping.
H